Whoa, how did my recommendation for stopping deadheading on Nov 1 get transformed into deadheading after Thanksgiving? :-D I grow a lot of HTs, Austins, and FLs, and I find that all of them respond extremely well to vigorous deadheading throughout the season. And by vigorous deadheading, I don't mean the wimpy snapping off of blooms. I mean cutting back fairly well after each flush. I don't want monster tall rosebushes with a bunch of small blooms at the top, which you can't even see b/c the bush is 8-10 feet high. I think the fundamental disagreement that Jeri & I have is that she grows mostly OGRs (including polys, teas, noisettes, etc.), and the whole pruning philosophy is different with them than it is with HTs, FLs and the more normal-sized Austins that I grow. You just need to understand that we come from different perspectives based on most of the types of roses we grow. As far as dormancy, there is no such thing really in warmer Calif (including San Jose and Santa Barbara). San Jose is not very different from Santa Barbara in terms of climate. It's not even remotely like what our friends in Mendocino County or other cold Calif zones experience temperature-wise. Anyway, in the warmer Calif zones, if you let roses make hips in the fall, stop deadheading around Nov 1, and prune them hard in January, they look dormant and get a bit of a rest, but depending on the weather, they pretty much immediately start working on pushing out the new leaves. New growth starts to appear in early March. Roses aren't like gardeners, in that they don't actually need a rest. And I prune very hard in January. Well, technically it's January, but b/c I have so many roses, it takes me from Christmas to Valentine's Day to prune everyone. We don't ever get rose freezing temps here... I think that's something like 20-22 degrees, but we fairly often get temps below freezing (32 degrees). Definitely more often than once a decade. I'd say it's at least every other year, and we fairly often go down to the upper 20s. Your specific microclimate matters a lot... mine is kinda cold for overnight temps. Roses aren't even remotely affected by temps even in the upper 20s. I'd say that with my pruning technique in my climate, I get my first rose blooms in mid to late April. Anyway, I guess my point to Masha is that you might want to listen to various opinions on pruning and deadheading, particularly from those in your zone and who grow the types of roses you do. There's a huge amount of variation, even in warm Calif. Susan

When dividing and transplanting cannas during the growing season you need to retain a good portion of the underground rhizome with the divided transplant. If the new transplant has already developed two or more leaves it may be advisable to cut the entire plant back to only a few inches of the soil line. The plant pictured below is about the right size to successfully survive and grow. Sorry about the dumb photographers shadow! Kent

All your type two clematis should be treated as type III clematis for the first year or two after you plant them. That means each winter/earlyspring they should be cut back to within a few nodes of the ground. As they come up, you can pinch the growing tips out after 4 to 5 leaves have developed. After having done this the first two years or so, I would not be pinching them out since they bloom on older wood and you might be pinching out blooms. Of course don't know if you can do this in your zone or not since I don't know the length of your growing zone, but in my zone I treat all my type IIs as type IIIs and hard prune them all every winter. I have Proteus, Piilu, Sunset, and Blue Light all up and over 4 feet tall after treating them as type IIIs last winter.

Well I stopped in October as suggested and they are still thick and green. Hmmm...hannesdp, it would appear that the calendar for South Africa is quite different than for Texas! In April-May mine are just coming to life - not going dormant, and if I pruned hard in July as suggested, I think they would surely die!